


throw the gauntlet

by thereinafter (isyche)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dirty Talk, F/F, Mirror Sex, Missing Scene, One Night Stands, Sparring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 09:48:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15927929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyche/pseuds/thereinafter
Summary: "The duelist issues an irresistible challenge ..."After helping the Warden in her card game at the Pearl, Leliana lets Isabela show her a few things.





	throw the gauntlet

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the same timeline as Matters of Record and (much later) Transfigurations 12:1, although they're only incidentally connected.

After Arl Howe’s assassins in the back room and the drunk White Falcons in the common room have been cleared out, the Pearl is looking a bit worse for wear.

The proprietress Sanga, grateful despite the mess, offers them a bottle of wine on the house. Tamar accepts and sits down at the nearest table with an exhausted sigh, Alistair following her.

Leliana takes the bench opposite them, unslinging the bow from her back. She wishes momentarily that the place were Orlesian enough to serve tea, imagines soft music and warmth through delicate porcelain, but this will do.

Sanga delivers a tray of cups and a flagon, then returns to her bustle of cleaning around them.

“Nicely done there, Warden,” comes a voice from the back of the room. Tamar looks up.

The Rivaini woman was there when they arrived, playing cards, and then sent a few of the mercenaries packing rather nicely herself. Her bodice leaves little to the imagination, her boots may be the tallest Leliana has ever seen, and she’s wearing enough gold to buy a small carriage.

Now, she has her feet up on a table and is shuffling her deck.

“What makes you think she’s a Grey Warden?” Alistair counters.

“I’ve seen enough of you to recognize another one. Something about the eyes.” She puts down a card. “And those amulets you wear.” Another. “And I overheard your little spat in the back room.”

“Well, fair enough,” he says, touching his amulet.

She scoops them up, swings her legs off the table, and approaches. “Don’t worry, I won’t turn you in, big boy. Arl Howe deserves everything you can give him.” She holds up the deck. “I don’t like solitaire. Fancy a hand of Wicked Grace?”

“I don’t know the game,” Tamar says, “but how hard can it be?”

Seeing the woman’s eyes brighten, Leliana jumps in. “Let me help. If …”

“Isabela.” Her voice is low and amused.

“… Isabela doesn’t mind.”

“She doesn’t.” Isabela slides onto the bench beside her. Very close beside her; she smells of wine and something pleasantly resinous. She begins to deal from the deck. “Five cards, no stake. Unless you three want to make it more interesting.”

“Not this time,” Leliana says, moving to Tamar’s side.

Tamar picks up her cards one at a time and peers at them. “We don’t play this in Orzammar. Or not in the Diamond Quarter, anyway.” She has a mixed hand: a pair of songs, an angel, and three stones. At Leliana’s instruction, she throws in the songs and draws two more cards.

After following Leliana’s advice for a few turns, Tamar says to Isabela, “I saw you during the fight. Impressive. I don’t suppose you could teach some of that, could you? Always looking to learn new tricks.”

“I really adored watching you beat the living shit out of those mercs,” Isabela says, “so no offense meant, truly, but you may not have the … flexibility required for my brand of tricks.” She glances at Alistair. “Him neither.”

She slides a card to the discard pile and draws the top one, then looks at Leliana. “Now, this one, on the other hand.” It’s more of an appreciative survey than a glance, and Leliana feels a little warm. She picks up her cup and drinks to buy time.

“Did you see?” Tamar asks. “Would you want to learn that, if she can teach you?”

“I did,” Leliana says after a measured swallow.

“Oh, I could,” Isabela murmurs over her cards at the same time. Her tone is rather stirring, if obviously calculated. And her skills would be useful; this is not only a flirtation.

Leliana admits to herself she’s curious about both. “I was impressed.” She sets down her cup. “I would be pleased to learn.”

Isabela turns over the card she drew without looking at it. “And the angel ends the game so soon.” She lays down her hand: three more angels, a very unlikely one. “Looks like I win. But I like to get to know my students before I duel them. Will you play another?”

Leliana nods, as Tamar finishes her wine and pushes away from the table. “We should get going,” she says to Alistair. “I think she can take it from here.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Leliana stands up and follows them to the entry hall. After she turns back at the door, she overhears Alistair saying, "Are you sure we should leave the _Chantry sister_ alone here?"

Tamar replies, "Please. She shouldn't leave me and you alone here, if anything. Let's go hold down the camp." She whistles to the dog outside.

Leliana smiles, and once they’re safely out, she returns to the table.

Isabela has already dealt two hands, but when she sees Leliana’s side-glance at them, she scoops them up and reshuffles. As Leliana sits down, Isabela nods toward the door. “She seems like a darling who is out of her element. But I don’t think you are.” A pause. “And you know my name, but I didn’t catch yours.”

"Leliana." Too late, she has second thoughts about giving it.

Isabela repeats it. "Pretty. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone here about you or your friends, and I’m only waiting for the tide.” She deals out ten new cards and picks hers up. “So, have you fought many duels? It was all the rage in Orlais when I was there last."

“I can hold my own hand-to-hand, but I tend to prefer the bow.” She gestures to it.

“I see." Isabela eyes her again lazily. "I do love a woman who can take me down at thirty paces."

"More like sixty." Leliana chuckles and raises her cup. “And what do you do besides shameless cheating at cards?”

Isabela laughs and flicks a card into the discard pile. "I call myself a trader, but the truth is, I’m more of a pirate."

"Somehow I guessed that." The wine is better than she expected from a Fereldan brothel. “I think it’s the boots.”

Isabela stretches one long leg out, admiring it herself. The buckles really do go all the way up to that flash of skin at the top. “They are excellent, aren’t they? Worth killing a man for.”

“You killed a man for them?”

“No, but I might.”

They play through the card game without much more conversation, but Isabela keeps watching her over the table in that openly appreciative way, warm-honey eyes under dark lashes. She must have stopped cheating, because she doesn’t win again immediately; Leliana takes a few hands and the score is almost tied when the angel of death resurfaces.

“There,” says Isabela, “I think I know enough about you to do this.”

She draws the two long knives from her shoulder sheaths and lays them on the table, then breathes on one blade and polishes it with a nearby napkin. “You’ll need at least one dagger for my style. I have more, if you don’t mind borrowing.”

“I don’t,” Leliana says.

Isabela runs her hands down her sides and does an interesting shimmy in her seat, and then she’s holding two more daggers. She flips the hilts toward Leliana.

“And we need more room. I know where.”

Leliana asks Sanga to watch her things and follows Isabela through the kitchen of the Pearl, past a cook who seems to know her well enough not to object, and out a back door into an alley.

Outside, the sun is dropping into the western sky, and a few urchins are hanging around the door, hoping to catch a glimpse of something exciting. “Out of here, kids,” Isabela says in a good-natured way, and they scatter.

“I was thinking here.” She walks to the middle of the alley and stands with her hip cocked. Leliana stops a few feet from her, the borrowed daggers at her sides.

Isabela looks her up and down again, then sheaths her knives. “On second thought, let’s start without these.”

Leliana slides the two daggers behind her belt. Isabela steps in and adjusts her position with light hands on her shoulders and waist. Her touch lingers, or maybe Leliana's awareness of it does.

"This way, you present the smallest target and get the most chances to strike." She takes a quick step back. "Try to touch me, and I'll show you."

She's backlit against the sun, then gone before Leliana reaches her, then reappearing with a touch on her shoulder. Leliana whirls to chase her, dodges a second touch. "You're fast," Isabela says. "Good. The way I fight, it’s all about diversions.” She lunges again, and quick fingers tuck Leliana's hair behind her ear, brush down her neck. “Catching them off guard, throwing them off balance. Keeping them just … where … I ...”

Leliana darts forward herself and is surprised to catch Isabela's side with her fingertips, surprised again by the feel of skin through laces. In her moment of hesitation, Isabela twists and puts a hand flat on her breastbone. “Want them.” She grins.

"I see what you mean.”

"But you caught me. That almost never happens.”

It’s heady to be flirted with so directly again. It feels like a challenge over and above the training, to pick it up and return it. Simpler than her muddle of old memories and newer confused feelings. Leliana trails her fingers around Isabela’s waist as they separate: taut fabric like sailcloth, boning, lacing, warm skin.

Isabela crosses back to her starting position. “I tend to make it up as I go, but I’ll show you some moves to start with. Stand like this and watch what I do.”

When she closes the distance in another quick motion, Leliana studies her instead of blocking the hand that strokes down her arm, not so quickly.

Isabela smiles. “Now, do that back.”

She mimics Isabela’s stance and footwork, repeats her leap forward. Isabela’s bare shoulder is silkier than she thinks of pirates being.

Isabela claps her hands—“Good again”—and then shows her more dueling forms, dancing past her guard to touch her on vital spots over and over, like tag with a spice of coquetry. Leliana works to mirror her until she’s conscious of Isabela’s smallest movements and her body feels alert all over.

When Isabela seems satisfied with the result of her efforts, she draws her long knives again. “Not that that wasn’t fun, but I did promise to teach you real dueling.” She catches Leliana’s glance at them and adds, “I assume you know enough not to fall on a blade.”

“I can take care of myself.” She reaches for the borrowed daggers.

“I can take care of both of us if it comes to it,” Isabela says, as if more innuendo were necessary.

They take positions and, on the count of ten, begin a practice duel. Isabela offers sometimes useful, sometimes distracting commentary while teasing, evading, and vexing her; Leliana thinks of it like her own songs, a show to control attention. Each time she manages to escape or introduce a variation on her moves, Isabela claps again in delight.

She’s sweating and her muscles are protesting when Isabela catches her with a riposte between the Pearl’s back wall and a rain barrel. The dagger point presses beneath her chin, tilting her face up. "You're getting good at this already. I bet you have many talents, pretty thing."

Before she consciously registers the words, Leliana freezes, her body seizing up around her abdomen. Isabela notices and eases off before the dagger pricks her. Her gaze turns curious.

_Maker’s breath._ Leliana shakes herself. Marjolaine's pet name deserves no power over her anymore, and this is not Marjolaine. "Oh, I do," she says.

The pirate's lips are dark and full, and the gold stud below gleams. On impulse, Leliana leans over the blade and kisses her, just a taste, to take back that power—but in the next moment she wants more, and Isabela gives it to her.

When she eventually pulls back, she’s warm, loose, lightheaded. Isabela slants another look at her through those lashes. “You are learning. I feel very off balance all of a sudden. ”

"Did I mention I've spent the last two years in the Chantry?" Lothering was a refuge, but it’s left her rusty, and she wants to be sharp again.

“And that, sweet one, could have been your _coup de grâce_ ,” Isabela says. “But, if there’s anything else you need …”

Leliana laughs, fresh energy fizzing through her blood. Her daggers drop back to ready position, and they part again and circle across the alley.

“Should I be calling you Sister? Do you want to hear about my sins?”

Leliana watches her eyes and her hands. "I'm sure in your line of work you have much to confess."

“Let me think.” Isabela’s focus wavers. Leliana could take advantage of this, but she likes a good story too much to stop her.

“Here’s a fun one: once I challenged a man to duel me stark naked.” She chuckles. “Like this, except, no clothes. He was drunk, but he fought hard. I was impressed he went through with it.”

Leliana smiles and takes the opening now to advance, pressing her backward over the paving stones. “I don’t recall the Chant forbidding any of that.”

“It was really an excuse to help myself to his private vault on my way out the next morning.”

“Ah, that would do it.”

Isabela blocks her attack and takes another step back into the alley. “Hmm. Another time, I kidnapped a girl from her wedding. She was very grateful. And she made a good sailor for a few months, until she left us in Llomerryn.”

“That sounds like a noble deed to me.”

“I slept with three Antivan merchant princes at the same time, and they were all married?”

“It’s true, Andraste does not condone breaking the sanctity of marriage.”

“Oh, there was the time I was hired to steal a set of engraving plates from the Randy Dowager Quarterly.” Isabela reaches the opposite wall and leans on it. “My client did _not_ want them published. I kept them instead of throwing them in the sea, though. The artist did very good work.”

Leliana reverses one dagger and rests it on the boards over Isabela’s shoulder. “I’d like to see that.”

“They’re on my ship, and that’s a little far away right now.”

She’s close enough to kiss again. As Leliana considers it, Isabela does it for her, claiming her mouth without using her hands, making her sway forward and drop her other point.

“I do have a room in the Pearl,” Isabela says against her lips. “The only one those idiots didn’t ransack."

“I’d … like to see that too.” She’s ready to call it a draw.

Isabela laughs and resheaths her knives in their harness, takes the others back. “I was _so_ hoping you’d say that.” She catches Leliana by the waist and whirls her around.

Inside, no one stops them on the way to her room. The door is double-locked and thick, lamps already lit, and the furnishings are as luxurious as Ferelden gets.

Isabela closes it with her hip, pulling Leliana up against her and tossing the key onto a table. She nuzzles Leliana’s neck. “Those were a few of my favorite sins, and you didn’t look shocked at all.”

“I grew up and learned my trade in Orlesian noble houses. It takes a great deal to shock me.” Her golden collar has no apparent fastening, but the front of her bodice is quickly unhooked, the laces slipping loose in Leliana’s fingers.

Hotter and softer when she slides her hands inside, and Isabela leans into her, almost purring, disappointment gone. “Your trade?”

“Singing, telling stories, entertaining. Many of the ladies I sang for had unusual interests, or so the rumors said.” Leliana kisses her neck above the collar and plays with the warm delectable curves of her breasts under it, feels the nipples harden in her palms. “I was not allowed to take part, but I heard of hidden collections of art, private parties without men, very elaborate indulgences.”

She’s embellishing a little, but with such a receptive audience it’s easy. Isabela likes a good story herself, she can tell, and this is her domain to teach.

She parts the bodice and lets the straps fall down Isabela’s arms. “One duchess, they said, liked to bathe in milk and have her lovers lick it off.” This was a real rumor, and she can’t resist trying it now, bending and running her tongue up to a dark nipple that hardens further in her mouth.

Isabela curses quietly above her. “Maker, how many talents do you really have?”

“It’s my pleasure,” she says, and it is; she doesn’t think she can get enough of this lovely generous softness in her hands and under her tongue. Nothing like Marjolaine. She’d nearly forgotten what it’s like to enjoy another woman’s body.

Her own nipples chafe tight and sensitive inside her rough borrowed jerkin. Isabela’s hands, undressing her, find them and caress, then pinch, and she gasps at the hard throb between her legs.

“Mmm,” Isabela says, “don’t stop that,” so Leliana busies her mouth with her gold-draped breasts while she wiggles out of the rest of her own scanty clothes, leaving only the jewelry.

“I don’t know why you’d ever leave,” she adds, and then sucks in a breath. “Oh, I’d like that all over. Now I wish I had a milk bath on the ship. Or a wine bath.”

Leliana, happy to continue, ignores her implied question. “On the bed.”

It’s steps away, a big wide featherbed that could hold more than two women and probably often does, and Isabela looks even more like a pirate queen leaning back on it.

Leliana climbs up beside her, sinking into the feathers, and bends to kiss her. Isabela pulls her down, tongue hot and thorough on hers, taking her breath.

When Isabela releases her lips, her heart is pounding in her ears, and she only wants to taste more of her. She kisses around the complicated edges of the collar and between her breasts; the salt of fighting sweat and the smell of her hair, something from over the sea, no doubt. She imagines herself tribute in some tawdry ballad.

“You know what would make this even more fun,” Isabela says, lifting her head to watch her, “is if you still had the Chantry habit.”

Leliana chuckles. "I do, in fact. But not with me."

"Pity."

“I think you’ll have enough fun,” she says, sliding to her knees and pressing Isabela’s thighs apart.

“Bless me, Sister,” says Isabela, wrapping legs around her back as she moves down.

She’s even more lush here, and not shy about expressing her approval in ways Marjolaine would never deign to. Sounds and moans progress into filthy ecstatic names and kicking her feet. Eventually Leliana has to hold her down, and she finds they both like that.

“Oh, you were wasted in the Chantry,” Isabela groans as Leliana presses her into the featherbed with both hands, “you beautiful thing, have you ever considered piracy? …” and she grabs at Leliana’s hair with one hand and her own body with the other, until she gives a wordless shout and comes deliciously over Leliana’s mouth.

It takes her a while, the pulse still shaking in her thighs and on Leliana’s tongue.

“If they were all like you, I’d be a born-again Andrastian,” Isabela says finally. `

Leliana laughs and wipes her face with the back of her hand. “I must be doing the Maker’s work, then.” She rolls over, and sees for the first time that a large half-foxed mirror is mounted on the ceiling, reflecting them back to themselves.

“Don’t think for a minute I’m finished with you.” Isabela gives a satisfied sigh and stretches an arm over her head, flexing her fingers. “But, at the same time, I don’t really want to move.” She pats her chest. “I know. Clothes off, come sit here.”

The heat between Leliana’s legs tightens again. She obliges, stripping the rest of the way and then climbing up and straddling Isabela’s body as directed.

Isabela caresses the backs of her thighs and slides a hand in to wet her fingertips. “Mmm. Further up.” She tugs her hips forward, and Leliana leans back on her hands, feels herself spread open. When she opens her eyes, she sees it above.

Isabela licks her fully and deliberately, like a confection she wants to take her time with. Hands firm under her waist, supporting the arch of her body. Traces a fingernail along her lower back until she shudders, skin alight with sensitivity.

Leliana watches her mirror self flush and split and writhe in Isabela’s hold, and her blood pounds harder until the sensation is too much and she squeezes her eyes shut, her breath catching into a moan.

Then Isabela begins to suck like the sweet is almost gone, and she has to roll forward and clutch at the headboard as pleasure effervesces up through her, tiny countless arrows transfixing her body, drawing out a series of inelegant cries.

She holds on until she can’t, and falls back.

Isabela catches her, tumbles her over, and grins down at her. “Still my turn, sweetness. Tell me something else dirty about Orlesian nobles while I catch my breath.”

* * *

Isabela is as insatiable as she seems, but Leliana finds she can match her, high on reclaiming herself for herself.

Afterwards, she lies there worn out and staring into the mirror, feeling complete, like all sides of her have been accepted and gloried in. Rather like she did at times in the chantry; she won’t tell Isabela that, but she’s thankful for this unexpected grace.

Isabela yawns and curls against her. “Sleep here. There’s lots of room, I’m selfish, and I like you.”

It’s far more comfortable than the camp, and Maker knows when she’ll have the chance again.

“Thank you,” she says, and drops a kiss on Isabela’s shoulder before sinking back into the featherbed.

“Besides, I want another round in the morning,” Isabela murmurs, and she laughs.


End file.
